Venture Everywhere Podcast: Isaac Park with Jenny Fielding
Jenny Fielding, Co-founder and GP of Everywhere VC, chats with Isaac Park, co-founder and CEO of Keebler Health.
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Episode 40 of Venture Everywhere is hosted by Jenny Fielding, Co-founder and GP of Everywhere VC. She chats with Isaac Park, co-founder and CEO of Keebler Health, an AI-first risk adjustment platform for value-based care providers and payers, using a custom transformer AI model to swiftly identify patient insights with minimal data. Isaac shares his journey from front-end engineering and product management to the complex arena of healthcare. Isaac also discusses the drawbacks of the traditional fee-for-service model and how value-based care can prioritize patient health, promoting preventive care and holistic well-being.
In this episode, you will hear:
How Keebler Health's AI platform enables value-based care providers to get an accurate picture of their patients. .
The risks in healthcare billing and coding within the fee-for-service model.
Using AI to manage unstructured patient data, especially for risk adjustment.
Identifying customer pain points and assessing the healthcare industry's readiness for AI integration.
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Jenny Fielding: Hi, and welcome to the Everywhere podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that. Founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:20 Jenny: Welcome everyone to Venture Everywhere. I'm Jenny Fielding and super excited today to have our guest, Isaac Park, the co-founder of Keebler Health, an AI-first adjustment platform for providers and payers. And Isaac's going to unpack a little bit more about what that means, what they do, what his journey has been, and super excited to have you today, Isaac.
00:00:45 Isaac: Awesome, Jenny. Thanks so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it.
00:00:48 Jenny: I'd love to start a little bit with your background. This is a somewhat, not niche, but somewhat specific space that you guys are working in. So why don't you tell us a little bit about where you started and what got you to the idea of Keebler?
00:01:01 Isaac: Oh, great question. So I have a background in front-end engineering and then pretty quickly into product management. It's where I stayed and have been trained for a long time. I ran a product studio for about 13 years and the back half of that was in two verticals primarily, but one of them was healthcare.
00:01:18 Isaac: We had some pretty strong relationships with healthcare groups that were working in the value-based care space. And so I cut my teeth on a lot of risk-bearing entity work and risk adjustment stuff. And so I learned a lot.
00:01:28 Isaac: A couple of my co-founders, Andrew in particular, we got together in that product studio. We met each other and made a couple of angel investments together. One of them was in the home healthcare roll-up. And after I had exited my role in that product studio, he and I were just gripping and talking a little bit.
00:01:45 Isaac: And as Andrew was helping that home healthcare roll-up take on an acquisition, he was starting to see things around that middle RCM space and then the billing and coding expenses and just floored, I'd say, with the amount of dollars that were going right out the door, to some of these other organizations.
00:02:03 Isaac: So we started asking the question, well, how do we enable or how do we reduce some of that administrative burden for some of these organizations? And that's initially what got us started. And from there, just customer discovery call, customer discovery call, and tracking down pain points. We ended up where we were.
00:02:17 Jenny: That's awesome. Just rolling things back a little bit, can you talk about what value-based care means? I think we hear that term quite a bit. It's a little confusing. So what's the evolution of that, would you say?
00:02:30 Isaac: It's easiest, I think, to start with the definitions of it. In traditional healthcare reimbursement models, it's called fee-for-service. And that's generally what most, I think, Americans probably experience on a day-to-day basis when they go visit a provider.
00:02:44 Isaac: Generally what that means is your provider or your clinician is reimbursed on a per-procedure process. So the things that they do to the patient and that intervention, that's what they get paid for.
00:02:57 Jenny: And that's why I get that bill that's 100 pages, and then they're like, this is not a bill.
00:03:01 Isaac: Yeah, yeah. And so there's all these pre-negotiated contracts around the rates with the provider and payer and whatever around those particular procedures.
00:03:09 Isaac: As you can imagine, it incentivizes these groups to make sure that they are not really paying attention to prevention because they're being paid for, or reimbursed, based on things that they do to you, right? There's no healthcare group out there that's really doing this in a predatory way, but it doesn't align the business incentives to do preventive care or doesn't even really allow for a space for preventive care.
00:03:32 Isaac: And so this is where value-based care really comes into play. And this is not a new concept by any means. It's been around for quite a while. Kaiser was doing value-based care well before the ACA and Obamacare and Medicare Advantage and some of these other ways that are happening right now.
00:03:46 Isaac: But the idea is to offer an alternative form of reimbursement. This is value-based care, right? To push down risk onto the clinicians or the providers, well, first payers and then providers, and allow them to really take a what's called a capitated payment or a, it's almost like a subscription model, right? A payment over time.
00:04:07 Isaac: And then those groups then are suddenly responsible with a budget to take care of that patient. And then they're responsible for those medical expenses as well. So any medical expenses on that patient that come in below that payment amount, they get to keep as profit.
00:04:22 Isaac: Any payments that go above medical expenses come out of their pocket. So therefore, all of a sudden the financial incentives were aligned for that provider group to make sure that that patient stays healthy.
00:04:33 Jenny: Interesting. But would that also mean that it's harder to get them to agree to certain tests or procedures or things like that because they don't want to pay for it?
00:04:42 Isaac: You would think that, but that's actually not quite true. It doesn't play out that way because a lot of those tests and procedures pale in comparison expense side to ultimately where the majority of that bulk of expense comes out of, which is hospitalization.
00:04:57 Isaac: So would payers and providers want to deploy as many preventive and early detection methods as possible to help prevent that patient from ending up in a really expensive ER visit? Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:10 Isaac: So they're going to do everything in their power to make sure that a patient stays healthy, taking them out on walks, all those kinds of things. It ends up being really holistic in the way that they approach these problems.
00:05:19 Jenny: Yeah, that's great. Thanks for giving a little background there. So getting back to Keebler, what were some of the inefficiencies that you saw? You mentioned this thing called RCM. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what that is, how billing works now and where you see it going.
00:05:36 Isaac: This is where we've made this journey, where when we started off, we were in that fee-for-service world. We weren't even in value-based care and we were looking at what's called RCM or revenue cycle management, which is generally the business function of taking encounters and then coding them and then billing them on that fee-for-service level.
00:05:55 Isaac: So determining what that CPT code is, billing it with the insurer, etc., etc., etc. We started there and then the more we looked at it, the more we realized that problem has already been solved to some degree. I would say, I always look at this measure of how much value can you return on a particular process.
00:06:12 Isaac: So if it's already happening and the existing inertial behavior is there and it's doing well, or even in a mediocre way, right, is it worth attempting or solving? Can we get that delta of value differentiation? And where we actually saw the biggest delta as a proxy for where was the biggest pain was in this value-based care space called risk adjustment.
00:06:33 Isaac: So kind of how I was explaining value-based care and that reimbursement level, this actually was our first thought. Why wouldn't these value-based care groups just be sprinting around and collect all the healthiest people? Right? Because if you're already healthy, that delta is going to be big.
00:06:46 Isaac: To allow for that, a lot of these value-based care arrangements have this process called risk adjustment, where the amount of money that gets sent to that provider or payer and then provider can get adjusted up depending on the benchmark of that patient's sickness level.
00:07:01 Isaac: And that's a pretty critical component to a lot of how these managed care groups operate right now is, can you accurately, with fidelity, take a bunch of patient data, look at it and say, this patient has these diseases or these chronic conditions, right?
00:07:15 Isaac: As you can imagine, that becomes such a critical function for the business of these groups that they staff that business function with really, really high quality labor. So you're looking at clinicians, extremely gifted coders, they're sitting around reading clinical documentation, and they're spending a lot of their time trying to figure out how do we accurately code these things.
00:07:49 Isaac: So the slightly different from the middle RCM space where they're just cranking out like almost machine gun, yeah, this was an office visit, CPT, this, right? So very different experience, same kind of core technology, but very different in quality.
00:07:57 Jenny: Interesting. So where do you guys fit in and talk a little bit about the new direction after you had that aha moment?
00:08:04 Isaac: In that aha moment, we realized that, oh, wait a minute, in that really complex high needs space where those clinicians are doing that work of risk adjustment, there was this moment where we realized in order to do that effectively, well, A, a lot of groups don't do it well right now. B, they struggle with it just because of the sheer amount of volume of clinical data they need to go through.
00:08:24 Isaac: Just encounter note after encounter note after encounter note for years in retrospective, coupled with all these other things like imaging and labs, et cetera, et cetera. It's just a lot of data that you need a really, I would say, skilled clinician to really read through and say, okay, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:08:43 Isaac: To that end, we looked at that and we're like, oh, wait a minute, that's a transformer problem or an AI problem, right? Can you take a bunch of unstructured data and rapidly at scale restructure that in a way that surfaces insights for clinicians?
00:08:56 Isaac: And so to that end, we were like, oh, let's try it, right? Let's see if we can do this. And some of our early results were so astounding. We were just like, oh, oh my gosh, we have to keep pursuing this. And so really our early successes are what led us down this road.
00:09:09 Jenny: Amazing. And when you think about healthcare, you think about regulations, you think about all the headwinds.
00:09:16 Isaac: Yeah.
00:09:16 Jenny: Talk about some of the challenges you guys have had. You're a young startup, but you've learned a lot. So the thing that we've talked about before, the long sales cycles and—
00:09:27 Isaac: Yeah.
00:09:27 Jenny: Just navigating the system. So talk a little bit about that.
00:09:31 Isaac: Yeah, there's a couple of things. There's the compliance and security side, and we have the advantage of having worked in healthcare before, all three of four founders. And so we're very familiar with understanding the constraints, for lack of a better word, for what it takes from a technology side, from security side, in order to work and play in the healthcare world.
00:09:51 Isaac: So there's that. There's a couple of things that are happening, I think, in the value-based care world writ large that are, I think a lot of groups, organizations see them as headwinds. We actually see them as tailwinds, which is really fascinating.
00:10:03 Isaac: There's a big shift in Medicare Advantage in the way risk is calculated. Groups that are listening that are familiar with it know exactly what I'm talking about. There's this shift from what's called an HCC model from Version 24 to Version 28.
00:10:18 Isaac: Version 24 was, for lack of a better word, more gracious in the way that they provide reimbursements on that risk adjustment scale. Version 28 is a bit of a correction to that, I would say. And therefore, everyone calls it the Medicare Advantage squeeze.
00:10:36 Isaac: Originally, they were just going to flip the switch on it. But there was so much backlash because all these groups had created operational structures around this Version 24 that CMS changed their model and are now blending it in over three years. But that blend will end in the next year or two.
00:10:51 Isaac: So you can imagine all these experts that have been trained to do suspecting in this particular way are suddenly now, oh, shoot, we need to relearn all of this. For us, that represents opportunity because our technology can just read the documentation and just go for it. And it already does. So we see this as an opportunity to say, hey, we can enable that change management. We can enable that speed to learning, I would say.
00:11:15 Jenny: I love it. Medicare disadvantage to advantage.
00:11:18 Isaac: Right, right. Yeah.
00:11:20 Jenny: And so talk a little bit more about how the technology works or really what the product does at the end of the day.
00:11:27 Isaac: Yeah. So the way I like to shape it is our core innovation is a transformer or a model, an AI model that can take a bunch of unstructured patient data and then restructure it dynamically. So we can take all this unstructured note and with a set of rules that we can say, hey, this, this, this or this, you can say, okay, suss out patient insights across this particular risk adjustment model or this other risk adjustment model.
00:11:57 Isaac: Or what we're getting a lot of interest in is other adjacent applications of structured patient data. We have one group that's asking us for what's called enrollment eligibility. So for some of these Medicare and Medicaid programs, the requirements that make a patient eligible for that particular program can be stringent or even gray area-ish.
00:12:18 Isaac: And the downstream implications on the business for submitting a patient for enrollment and being wrong are really painful. It's the same process. It's the same motion behavior. Take a bunch of patient medical history data and make a judgment around a structured rule set.
00:12:35 Isaac: And so what we're doing is we're taking all of that data, making it really easy for clinicians, for business operations, public health, health population, individuals or workers to look at that data and suspect out or surface patient insights really quickly, rapidly at scale.
00:12:51 Jenny: Amazing. I remember when we first met, maybe you being a technical and product person, you kind of got in the weeds. It seemed like an interesting market.
00:13:00 Jenny: But then I remember at some point you said to me, oh, no, Jenny, the vision is actually much bigger. So can you talk about the true north of Keebler and where you see the world going?
00:13:10 Isaac: Yeah, I mean, we're not alone in this. And that's actually what's really encouraging. The deeper we've gotten into the healthcare industry is that, the whole industry is littered with really good actors. Everyone is moving in this direction, albeit admittedly slowly relative to the rest of other industries out there.
00:13:25 Isaac: But it is filled with so many great people and everyone is trying to reduce healthcare costs. Everyone knows it's a problem. It's a $4 trillion industry, I think it’s more now. Half of that is considered waste and another half of that is considered administrative waste.
00:13:39 Isaac: What's fascinating, at least for us, is this landscape shift that's happening where all of a sudden in large language models allow for the dearth of busy work, for lack of a better word, to be minimized relatively rapidly.
00:13:57 Isaac: So even within the landscape of the U.S. healthcare, right, in the next three to five years, the speed at which we could start to reduce some of that busy work, whether it's clinical documentation or billing or coding or any other kinds of things, that's going to narrow really fast. So for us, we want to be a part of that change.
00:14:13 Isaac: We want to be a part of reducing that administrative burden, not just from an expense side, but even just from a time and energy and headspace place for a lot of people who are in this industry to take care of other people's health care.
00:14:27 Jenny: Yeah, I've experienced a lot of doctors in the family and the worst part of their job is the paperwork. And I think that that's a common refrain amongst caregivers. And so it feels like we're at a moment in time where technology can really accelerate cutting down on the bureaucracy, the paperwork and all of that stuff.
00:14:44 Isaac: Yeah. And I'd say the tectonic shift here on artificial intelligence has also allowed, I think, a lot of groups who would traditionally have been, you know, I'm not really into the change management requirements. Doors are opening, people are way more interested. And so it's a really interesting time, I'd say.
00:15:03 Jenny: Yeah, instead of closing the doors and pretending that it's not here, they're embracing it. So that's exciting. Hopefully those sales cycles get shorter.
00:15:11 Isaac: Yeah.
00:15:12 Jenny: We know that it takes a village to get a startup going. So love to hear about some of the people maybe that have inspired you along the way. You don't have to give specific names, but just the types of people and the support that you've gotten, the mentorship along the way.
00:15:26 Isaac: Oh, yeah. We have a host of people who have been so incredibly helpful, firm supporters and allies. This might even be just end up being like a thank you tour.
00:15:36 Isaac: First and foremost, our early customers, they have been true champions of the vision, the technology. We learn from them so much. They are strong, true believers in value-based care. They know that it's not perfect, but it is better in terms of where and how you can aim to take care of patients.
00:15:55 Isaac: And then the thoughtfulness that they put into how can we take new innovations or new technology and try and help enable that. They are right there with us in the trenches. And I'm so grateful for them, for the opportunity to use our technology, our investors.
00:16:09 Isaac: Jenny, thank you so much. You trusted us way, way, way back on almost nothing. So we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to even take a shot at this. We know that we raised more than typical groups do in our early stages because we knew that we needed the bankroll in order to work in the healthcare space.
00:16:29 Isaac: And so we are really grateful to you and our other investors for that chance. Then we have a whole host of industry advisors also who have been adjacent, people that have come from our past networks where we were able to ask really early questions and learn really quickly around where and how and what those problems are. So that, yeah, that my team is amazing.
00:16:50 Jenny: We appreciate that. Any learnings from your product studio? So that's always interesting. I mean, folks that we back come out of so many different backgrounds. Some come from the industries.
00:17:01 Jenny: But having been in a studio, maybe you could just talk about what a studio is and then maybe some of the learnings that inform the way that you build, the way that you see going to market, etc.
00:17:13 Isaac: Yeah, studios are really fascinating. And I'm still in love with them. It's a generic term and they come in many different flavors and forms. The flavor of mine was more early innovation or early product startup as a service.
00:17:25 Isaac: So we had groups that were looking to do early product entries or even more meta, establish their own corporate innovation culture and structure. So how do you do startup or how do you do early problem identification and then solution crafting, validation and sort of the rollout of that?
00:17:43 Isaac: So I'd say two things. First, process for the innovation. So how do you rapidly, quickly qualify a customer pain point and then test it? The amount of repetitions we had in that 13 years is just the best proving ground or training ground, I think, for how do you enter into something brand new, net new? So that's the first.
00:18:01 Jenny: How many years were you there?
00:18:03 Isaac: 13 years.
00:18:04 Jenny: Oh, my gosh. That is incredible. I don't think I've met anyone who has been, you know–
00:18:08 Isaac: In a product studio. For 13 years.
00:18:11 Jenny: That's amazing.
00:18:13 Isaac: Yeah, we did it for 13 years. I think the other thing that we, or I, learned was how to learn. So speed to learning was something that was pretty advantageous, I think, as a walkaway.
00:18:25 Isaac: As a product studio, we did have strong verticals of healthcare and defense, but just writ large across the board, we got so much exposure to so many different industries that we had to have the ability innately in us to be able to parachute into a brand new situation, brand new industry, brand new vertical, learn the lexicon incredibly quickly and speak at a level that communicated.
00:18:46 Isaac: We understood what was going on and that we were experts in that situation without being, I would say, incredibly arrogant. right? You had to be approachable at the same time. I would say that that was a really big, critical skill set I walked away with.
00:19:00 Jenny: That's amazing. So getting back to Keebler, what keeps you up at night? What are the things that you worry about?
00:19:07 Isaac: You hinted at it, the long sales cycle. Healthcare is just generatively new. So that keeps me up at night. Actually, we have the advantage. I was talking about this sort of that landscape shift.
00:19:16 Isaac: We have the advantage and what I'm, we're seeing this, where groups that traditionally might have had much longer sales cycles are seeing this landscape shift, the value that artificial intelligence is going to bring. They all see this shared vision.
00:19:30 Isaac: So they're speeding up their decision making. So that's really, really amazing to see. I'm still worried about it. It still keeps me up. So that's probably the one that's up there.
00:19:41 Jenny: I love it. What's one idea that experts in your field say, that you disagree with?
00:19:46 Isaac: Uff. Oh, man.
00:19:48 Jenny: Probably a lot in your field.
00:19:50 Isaac: Yeah, there's a lot. I don't actually encounter this that much in the experts in the field. But in general, I would say there's this aura that healthcare is intractably broken. I don't actually think that's true. I think there's this false narrative that healthcare is impossible to change.
00:20:05 Isaac: And the more I've encountered CEOs of large high needs groups and Medicare Advantage type payers, the more people I meet, the more I'm floored by their willingness to change and the effort that they are putting in to take care of their patients.
00:20:23 Isaac: Even if they're non-clinical or non-clinical facing, like business administrators who are in it to really make change for the better for patients. I'm pretty floored by that. Are there bumps and friction points? Yeah, absolutely. Are there obstacles, 100 percent? Is it slower because of the, I would say, hurdles, administrative hurdles or even legal hurdles? Yeah. But part of me thinks that should be there, it’s healthcare, right?
00:20:47 Isaac: The downstream consequence of something that, for a bad decision, is going to be really bad because you're taking care of people's health. So, yeah, that's what I would say.
00:20:57 Jenny: I love it. So optimistic. You talked a little bit about how you guys are utilizing AI. I teach a class at Cornell Tech, and I would say every one of the students who are building healthcare related companies are starting AI first, which is pretty interesting. So...
00:21:13 Isaac: Yes.
00:21:14 Jenny: They're your people. But taking a step back or zoom out, how do you see AI transforming healthcare more generally? So not necessarily just in space, but it seems like all these students that whether they're building in mental health or they're building, I mean, every single part of the stack potentially can be transformed.
00:21:33 Isaac: Yeah, 100 percent. I am a firm believer, and I think most people who are in artificial intelligence, actually a lot of people, that the large language model, decoder only, landscape shift, I've used that term a few times. I truly think it's tectonic in the same way that pre-Internet, post-Internet, you were the Internet enabled business, and now it's just business, right?
00:21:56 Isaac: You were a mobile social first business, but now it's just business. I think that's going to be the same for artificial intelligence. It's not going to be AI first in a few years. It's just going to be a business. It's going to be so pervasive and change every single way, shape and form of a business's function that it's just going to be generic.
00:22:18 Jenny: I look forward to that day where every deck I get…
00:22:20 Isaac: I know, right?
00:22:20 Jenny: Yeah. Does not start with AI.
00:22:23 Isaac: I see, I'm sure you get a bajillion pitches, AI first this, AI that. Yeah, hopefully in a year or two, it's just going to be business.
00:22:33 Jenny: A better business.
00:22:34 Isaac: Yeah, better business. As far as healthcare itself, a lot of people are talking about how it's going, like where and how. And I think there's still a lot of unknowns. So that's actually what's exciting.
00:22:44 Isaac: A lot of unknowns that everyone seems to agree that administrative burden is going to be first place. And then it's going to start spider webbing out into things like clinical decision making, clinical use cases, et cetera, et cetera. How quickly, how effectively that will happen. I think everyone is still trying to figure that out.
00:23:02 Jenny: Makes sense. We always like to ask guests what their superpower is. I feel like our founders have so many superpowers, but what's the one thing that you're known for? People say, yep, Isaac, he's the guy.
00:23:14 Isaac: I had to ask Andrew. Like what is that?
00:23:19 Jenny: You didn't know your own superpower?
00:23:21 Isaac: I kind of had thoughts and some ideas and Andrew helped me shape them a little bit. I would say two. The first is customer empathy. And it's not just the fact that there is empathy. I think it's really more like speed and intuition and the ability to rapidly get to that point of customer.
00:23:39 Isaac: Like, what are they actually feeling and anticipating? If I show this to them, what are they going to feel in reaction to that? Sort of that, you’re like, you're doing internal rapid feedback cycles and interrogation in your head really quickly. That's probably one of my superpowers, I'd say.
00:23:54 Isaac: And the other I've mentioned already is speed to learning. How quickly can I parachute into a situation and learn around what's going on? Lexicon is a big deal. How quickly can you learn the terminology, the acronyms, the languages and really understand what they mean so that you can use that language and mirror it back to people? Those are critical skill sets. I learned both of them at that product studio.
00:24:18 Jenny: Interesting. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of acronyms in healthcare. I'm always like, wait, what is that? I'm sorry.
00:24:23 Isaac: Yeah.
00:24:26 Jenny: What does success look like for you personally and for Keebler?
00:24:29 Isaac: For now, I would say we are diligently hyper-focused on making sure that our early customers get value out of us. Again, one of the things I learned at the product studio is like nothing matters, right? If we can't deliver value in heaps and bounds and multiples from what they're doing right now.
00:24:47 Isaac: It's like golf. If you don't give it enough juice in a putt, you have no shot at making any kind of successful change. And so for us, it starts with, can we actually deliver value to some of these customers really quickly, really early? Not even can we, we know we can. Like, let's just do it.
00:25:04 Jenny: Love it. Any tips on recruiting an all-star team? Seems like you and your co-founder have a great rapport and you guys are building a really cool team down in North Carolina. So not necessarily in the heart of startup land, but in a very cool developing ecosystem.
00:25:22 Isaac: Yeah. I get asked this question a lot. And to some degree, I think we all got really lucky, right, knowing each other. So there's certainly an element of that. I would say, actually, you probably know this better than any of these people do.
00:25:37 Isaac: I would say the fact that we all started this business mid-career is a huge advantage because the team was largely ready to go. We closed our funding round because they were all people that we had previously worked with.
00:25:50 Isaac: So converting that to tips or advice, I'd say get to know your teammates wherever you are, establish long-term relationships wherever you are, become friends with your coworkers wherever you are. And I think your cloud or host or network of supporters, it'll happen. It'll be there.
00:26:06 Jenny: Well, and then just quickly talk about the ecosystem down in Raleigh-Durham and how it's building and your excitement about it. Because I know I came to visit recently and every time I come, it just seems like there's more going on. There's more energy. And so tell us a little bit more about that.
00:26:22 Isaac: Yeah, the region's fantastic. I mean, I fell in love with it. I came here for school and then I kept telling myself two more years, two more years, two more years before I go back to L.A. And then I just never did.
00:26:32 Isaac: I love it here. I love the people here. I love the entrepreneurial spirit here. There's so much, I would say, attitude around let's build, let's go, let's make change. The region has been historically a hub for innovation for a long, long time, right?
00:26:50 Isaac: Even back before Black Wall Street, et cetera. This has been an entrepreneurial hub for a long time. It's in its roots and in its DNA. And I think the expression of it may evolve over time or it may change. But the community here has always been about let's grow, let's build.
00:27:06 Jenny: And then specifically healthcare, right? Because a lot of the companies spinning out of the great universities that you have?
00:27:13 Isaac: Yeah, Duke is really well known for its biomedical engineering and a lot of the groups here and general life sciences have a big, deep expertise in that. As a result, I think healthcare is a big vertical in this region.
00:27:26 Isaac: At the product studio, I always joke that we were health care defense specific. We weren't. We had deep expertise in it. But that's also because North Carolina, or in general has deep roots and ties into healthcare and in defense.
00:27:37 Jenny: Amazing. All right. Speed round where we get to know some things about you. So what's a book you're reading or a podcast you're really enjoying?
00:27:45 Isaac: Oh, man. I'm always a big fan of Lenny's. Lenny's product podcast. I'm a big fan of it. Oh, the SVPG people, Christian Idiodi and Marty Cagan, they just launched their podcast. I'm a product super nerd. And so I've been a subscriber to the SVPG product frameworks for a while. And so seeing them launch their podcast, I'm an avid listener. I'm already completely off professional.
00:28:09 Isaac: I love this podcast called Gastropod. I don't know if you're familiar with it. They're short, they're edited fast, but it's all about this connection between science, history and food. And the hosts are incredible. Anytime there's a new episode, I'm on it immediately.
00:28:25 Jenny: Love it. That's a great one. If you could live anywhere in the world for just one year, where would it be?
00:28:31 Isaac: Probably either Singapore or Australia. My wife is from there. We have family there. Every time we're there, I love it.
00:28:40 Jenny: That's a good one.
00:28:41 Isaac: That's an easy choice, actually.
00:28:43 Jenny: Easy choice. Favorite productivity hack?
00:28:46 Isaac: I always joke, half joke. I would say for anything productivity related, visualization is 80% of the battle. If you can get stuff out on paper, it doesn't matter what way, shape or format. It doesn't even matter. Like the framework doesn't even matter, honestly.
00:28:59 Isaac: If you can get it out and you can see it, I think people's innate skill set around intuition, analysis, decision making, it just gets activated. I would say, whatever you do, just get it out on paper so you can see it all.
00:29:13 Jenny: Nice. Different answer. Most people are like, Slack.
00:29:18 Isaac: Yeah, I tend to be tool agnostic.
00:29:21 Jenny: I love. It was a good answer. Okay. Well, where can listeners find you? You're going to have a lot of outreach of people that are interested in getting in touch.
00:29:30 Isaac: Oh, LinkedIn is probably the easiest place. Find me, connect with me, send me a message. Yeah. That's going to be the best place to find me.
00:29:37 Jenny: Love it. Well, Isaac, it's been an amazing pleasure to get to know you actually over the last few years and to see the evolution of Keebler. So excited to be on this journey with you and thanks for joining the pod.
00:29:50 Isaac: Thanks Jenny, it's been an absolute pleasure.
00:29:52 Jenny: Thanks.
00:29:54 Scott Harley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere. We're a first check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're a community of 500 founders and operators, and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, Everywhere.VC, on LinkedIn and through our regular Founder Spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe and we'll catch you on the next episode.